


Lost In A Magnificent Gray

by cinematicara



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Betrayal, Character Death, Dream Smp, Execution, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Groundhog Day, Sleepy Bois Inc Angst, The Green Festival, Time Loop, Time Travel, l'manberg, sleepy bois inc - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28689504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinematicara/pseuds/cinematicara
Summary: "I’ve been stuck in a time loop,living the past three weeks over and over.Every night, on the final day, I wake up again,back on the first day where I started.Again and again.From the day I survived my executionand found Tommy in my houseto the day of the festival.and every single time he turns his back on me."-tickyickytldr; techno stuck in timeloop what will he do
Relationships: No IRL shipping - Relationship, No Romantic Relationship(s), Sleepy Bois Inc - Relationship, Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 236





	Lost In A Magnificent Gray

**Author's Note:**

> this is going to be based off a super swag comic by @tickyicky on twitter! 
> 
> i really am such a hoe for groundhog day aus so naturally i had to speedrun this bad boy
> 
> enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ I’ve been stuck in a time loop,  
> living the past three weeks over and over.  
> Every night, on the final day I wake up again  
> back on the first day where I started.  
> Again and again.
> 
> From the day I survived my execution  
> and found Tommy in my house  
> to the day of the festival.  
> and every single time he turns his back on me.
> 
> -tickyicky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah here we go this was a very spontaneous write, let's see if it goes anywhere

The first evidence that something was wrong was the soft pulsing of the green light on his communicator indicating a new message. No one ever contacted him via communicator, excepting Phil and Dream, but that wouldn’t make any sense since Phil had been staying with him since he’d fled from house arrest, and as for Dream… well, the two of them had already accomplished what they had set out to do together. So who could the message be from?

Techno frowned at the light as it flickered on and off rhythmically. Whoever it was, he doubted they had any kind words to trade with him after what he had pulled the previous night. 

Sighing, he dragged himself out of bed and over to the hook on the wall where the comm impatiently waited. The faint  _ chirp _ that accompanied the blinking bulb had always irritated him to no end. He had no desire to talk to anyone that wasn’t already living within the house, but until he saw the message, the beeping and blinking would continue. Chewing his lip, he pushed on the light to activate the message, bracing himself to see a hologram of Tommy, Tubbo, or even Quackity’s furious face spring to life before him. Instead, to his surprise and relief, he gets Phil’s. 

The small grapefruit-sized recorded hologram of his friend’s face flickered as Phil glanced around anxiously, as if checking to make sure he wasn’t being watched. Techno’s guard immediately went up. Clearly Phil wasn’t at the house. And he was scared.

“Phil, where the hell are you?” he murmured to himself as the hologram began to relay its message.

“ _ Techno _ ,” Phil’s mechanical voice whispered urgently. His message was short, but straight to the point. “ _ We don’t have much time. They know where you are. Get ready, old friend.” _

The image flickered once more and then disappeared. The green light shut off with a faint  _ click _ . 

Techno stared at the device in his hand and chuckled to himself as his heart rate slowed to a regular pace, sliding the comm back onto the hook. He’d gotten himself all worked up over a little system glitch! Phil was fine, he was probably just passed out on one of the lower levels, or maybe in the doghouse that the Ender kid had temporarily moved into. There was no reason for him to be alarmed.

Now that he had gotten that out of the way, he did his morning stretches, shaved his face, and ate a meager breakfast. The previous night had left him worn both mentally and physically like he had never been before. Sure, he had enjoyed destroying the country—that was one thing he would be thrilled to finally cross off his to-do list—but the fight had taken a toll on him. Not to mention Tommy’s betrayal… 

He stood abruptly and tossed the remaining half of his apple into the trash, his appetite gone. Tommy’s betrayal had broken something in him that he wasn’t sure could ever be mended. It would take more than a good night's rest to even clear it from the forefront of his mind.

_ Now what? _ He squinted out the window. The sun had only barely begun to peak over the horizon. He would have plenty of time to work today, but first, the dogs. 

Feeding the dogs was a process, even after their numbers had been reduced by the hundreds, but it was good mindless work, and heaven knew he needed something mindless to do for a while.

He descended the ladder to his room full of chests and paused before dropping to the floor. The nasal  _ hrrrr _ ’s and  _ hmmm’ _ s from a handful of recovered undead villagers was not at all what he had expected to be greeted with. He had moved all his villagers a floor below nearly two weeks prior. His eyebrows creased as he made eye contact with one of them. 

“Who are you?” he demanded. 

“ _ Hrrrrrh,”  _ the villager answeredunhelpfully.

Maybe Phil had gone out and captured more. Techno had turned in pretty early for the night, who knew what exactly Phil had been up to in the meantime. Techno shrugged and slapped the villager on the back as he walked past them towards his chests. “Well, since you’re here, make yourself at home, I guess.”

He fumbled with the latch on his chest marked  _ food _ and cursed his shaking hands.  _ What was wrong with him? _ When at last he pulled the lid open to reveal its contents, his heart sank. All his rotten flesh was gone.  _ What on earth had Phil been up to _ ? 

“Maybe he already fed the dogs?” he wondered aloud to the nearest villager. “He’s helpful like that.” The man in the boat responded with an inquisitive “ _ hmmm?” _

Techno nodded. “Yes. Philza. He lives here too. He rescued you last night.”

“ _ Hurh.” _

Techno stood, stretching again. His muscles were unusually taught this morning. He continued to audibly narrate as he left the house, “I suppose I’ll go check on him and Ranboo. They’ve been pretty quiet this morning.”

He squinted into the sun as his boots crunched through the snow as he walked towards the makeshift doghouse. He walked and walked and walked before finally realizing with a start that he was headed off into nowhere. Stopping abruptly, he spun around. The doghouse was nowhere to be seen, along with its many occupants. He had not passed the doghouse. The doghouse had not even been there. 

“How the hell…”

He quickly trekked back to where it had once stood alongside his house. Nothing. Not even a mark in the snow. 

His breathing began to quicken.  _ Was he losing it? Had the stress of his tirade against L’Manburg finally caused him to crack?  _

“Okay,” he muttered. This is definitely not good.”

“Hi, Technoblade!” 

His anxiety wavered at the familiar sound of Ghostbur’s voice. He turned, relief cracking the mask of fear that had begun to wash over his hardened features. Ghostbur hovered lightly over the snow beside his blue sheep—his Friend—excitedly waving hello. 

“Ghostbur! What’s going on? Where’s Philza?”

The ghost tilted his head. “You lost Philza?”

“Yes…? No...” Techno shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Well. I’m sorry, Technoblade, that sounds sad. But look who I just met!” He plummeted to the ground and sank into the snow as he threw his arms around Friend. “I made a friend!”

“Right. Hello, Friend.”

Ghostbur sprung back up into the air, steam hissing from his legs where he had knelt in the snow. “What are you doing?” 

Techno gestured for the ghost to accompany him back to the house. “Looking for Philza. I’m gonna ping him.”

“That sounds fun!”

“Mhm.”

The pair headed back towards the house, the blue sheep still wandering aimlessly through the snow. Techno glanced at Wilbur. “What happened to the lead I gave you for him?”

“Lead?”

“Yeah. The first time you met Friend I gave you a lead for him.”

Ghostbur looked puzzled. “The first time?”

“Ah, right.” Techno opened the door and crossed the room to snag his communicator from the wall. “You probably wouldn’t remember. It was kind of a bad day. But, er, that’s alright, I don’t really want to remember it either.” He held the communicator out in front of him and held the green button down to record. 

The electronic voice of the communicator warbled to life. “ _ Outgoing call to:”  _ the device beeped, indicating for him to announce where to send the call. “Philza,” Techno said. “Status: urgent.”

_ “Connecting [URGENT] message to [PHILZA MINECRAFT]. Please leave your message after the tone.” _

“Phil! Where are you? The dogs are all gone, and I can’t find Ranboo either. What’s going on?”

He released the button. 

“ _ Message: [SENT].” _

He raised an eyebrow at Ghostbur. “And now we wait.”

Turns out they didn’t have to wait long. Less than a minute later, the comm light began to blink. He clicked the button and Philza’s hologram appeared, looking confused and still just as frantic as he had on the message from three weeks ago. Weird.

“ _ What? What dogs? Ranboo is coming, that’s why you have to leave! Did you not get my last message?!” _

Techno stared as the hologram blinked and disappeared. He pushed the button again. “Reply to Philza.”

“ _ Reply to [PHILZA MINECRAFT].” _

_ “ _ What are you talking about? What message?”

“ _ Message: [SENT].” _

The comm chirped and Techno pushed the button.

“ _ I sent it hours ago! Quackity is coming for you, Mate, you need to prepare! They took the compass, they know where to find you!” _

Techno pushed the button and cried out frantically, “Quick reply to Philza!” The button blinked but the electronic voice stayed silent at his request. “He’s coming  _ again?  _ Why is Ranboo with him? Did he betray us?”

_ Ping. _

“ _ Dunno what the hell you’re talking about, mate. All I know is that Quackity has a small army and they’re headed your way. Techno, they want you dead, you have to go now _ .”

Techno fought the urge to throw the comm across the room in frustration. “What does he mean?!” he screamed at no one in particular without activating the comm. “This already happened!”

Ghostbur piped up cheerily from beside him. “Don’t be upset, Techno.” The pale gray man gasped and dug around in his pocket for a while before proudly presenting a lump of Blue to Technoblade. “You need some Blue!”

“Thank you, Ghostbur.” He accepted the offering and sighed as the knot in his chest loosened, his anxiety partially leached away by the Blue. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, grounding himself back to reality. “I don’t know what’s going on, but if the Butchers are back, you need to leave, Ghostbur.”

“What?”

“I’ll give you a lead for your sheep, but you need to run as far away as you can. You can’t be seen with me after what happened yesterday.”

Ghostbur blinked. “Yesterday?”

“You wouldn’t remember,” Techno brushed the question aside. “The point is, I’m not someone you should be associating with right now. Now leave. Get out of here, Ghostbur.” The ghost opened his mouth to respond but Techno wasn’t having it. “ _ NOW.” _

Ghostbur looked hurt for a moment, but obediently turned and drifted out through the wall. Techno shook his head; he would never get used to that.

Back to business now. If what Phil had been saying was true, he had mere minutes to prepare. They knew their way here this time, and they wouldn’t hesitate to come knocking down his door. 

He threw some bottles onto the brewing stand and crouched in front of his Ender chest for whatever weapons he had left after the battle, and—

Well that was odd.

He reached into the chest and pulled out his pickaxe.  _ TechnoDrill  _ was etched neatly into the side. “Now hold on a second,” he said aloud. “Just wait. Everybody slow down.” He reached in again and retrieved an axe.  _ Axe of Peace,  _ the engraving on the blade said. He dropped to his knees. Suddenly, the pieces began to click into place.

“No,” he breathed. “No, no, no, no, this can’t be here. It can’t—”

Bile began to rise in his throat. None of this made any sense. Phil’s call, the missing dogs, the returned weapons, Ghostbur and Friend… whom Ghostbur had apparently just met. His blood ran cold as the realization began to fully dawn on him. He had experienced  _ deja vu _ before, but this couldn’t compare to the sensation. He didn’t  _ feel _ as though he’d been thrown back in time—all his memories from the weeks following his execution were still intact—and yet here he was, somehow teleported exactly three weeks into the past. Which meant this actually was execution day.

He swore under his breath. Quackity would be arriving soon, along with his compatriots, his butchers in arms, ready to clap him in irons and drag him away. 

Racking his brain for everything he knew about time jumping, he fumbled with his tools, taking extra care to tuck a small totem of undying into his boot. What was that one famous law about time travel? Something about the flutter of butterfly wings as a single small-scale phenomenon having the capacity to create monumental changes elsewhere in the space-time continuum? It hurt his brain just to think about, but he vowed to do his best to avoid slipping up in a way that could drastically alter the timeline. All he could do was hope that things would go back to normal once he was caught back up with his previous present reality.

When the Butchers finally arrived, everything played out exactly as it had the first time around, complete with Ghostbur giving away Techno’s position and the barter for Carl’s life. 

He cried out at the sight of Phil upon their return to New L’Manburg, just as he had before. And just as he had before, he let himself die and be brought back through the power of the totem. He was dismayed to find that dying to the anvil hurt just as badly the second time. 

The rest of the month was vastly the same, with Techno doing his absolute best to keep any conversations and interactions completely intact as they had been the first time. He found Tommy beneath his house, berated him, and ultimately allowed him to join the commune. He was encountered by Dream on multiple occasions. He kept Tommy hidden. He freed Philza, reclaimed a handful of his tools, and set a Wither loose on L’Manburg. Everything remained exactly as it had been. 

And then came the day before the festival. 

Techno had been dreading this part the most from the moment he’d realized he’d been thrown back in time. The urge to change things just this one time—to allow Tommy to face down the entirety of the country alone rather than step to his aid only to be betrayed—tempted him to no end. 

But he knew he couldn’t do that. The butterfly effect would hold him to the way things had been. 

And so, he was forced once again to stand up for Tommy and then watch as he left his side for the very person who had pulled the lever at Techno’s execution. So much for friendship.

When Techno settled into bed that night he found himself staring up at the ceiling for what seemed like hours, totally lost in thought as he mentally prepared himself for the next day. Once again, L’Manburg would soon be little more than a smoking pile of ash. His brow creased.  _ No.  _ They would do better this time. There would be  _ nothing _ left at all but bedrock by the time they were done tomorrow. The fury that came with having to face his young friend’s betrayal for a second time would fuel him.

When at last he drifted off to sleep he dreamt of TNT rain and eerily etched smiling masks.

He awoke to the faint  _ chirp. chirp. chirp  _ of his communicator. It wasn’t where he’d left it on his nightstand, instead hanging from the hook across the room. Frowning, he crossed the room and pressed the play button. Philza’s disheveled face sprung into view, looking around nervously at something just barely out of view. This seemed familiar. Techno’s heart dropped to his shoes as it clicked.  _ No.  _ It couldn’t be, not again. He refused to go through the last three weeks for a third time. 

“ _ Techno _ .” Sure enough, Phil’s voice crackled its warning from the comm, his tone desperate. Techno sank to his knees as his friend finished. “ _ We don’t have much time. They know where you are. Get ready, old friend.” _

Without a word, Techno ran to the bathroom and promptly threw up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> subscribe to technobl- [GUNSHOT]
> 
> ooOoOoooo you wanna leave nice comments so bad oOoooOoooO

**Author's Note:**

> _ayoo go follow @tickyicky on twitter for giving me this idea! and me, follow me as well @pLgLLns (displayed PlGLlNS) ___


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